


Card Games

by slightlycrazygamer (Verunme)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Card Games, Gambling, Gen, Poker, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 13:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17705093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verunme/pseuds/slightlycrazygamer
Summary: Post Kingdom Hearts III. No major spoilers other than characters not being dead.Sora and Luxord promised each other a simple game. They keep their promise. Sora, however, is in trouble.





	Card Games

**Author's Note:**

> A very short drabble I wrote while waiting on a teammate who arrived two hours late. Had the idea stuck in my brain since finishing the game last night.

“Interesting…”, the elegant man said, eyeing the card he had just plucked from the deck.

Sora had grown to strongly dislike that word over the past few hours. It always ended badly for his munny. He dug his toes into the lukewarm sand and ran his thumb over his cards again. He was definitely in trouble, with a bunch of situational spells and one super rare but useless-by-itself card.

“Your move now,” Luxord continued. Then, after a short pause, “I must say, your world is definitely a beautiful one.”

“You’ve run out of things to say to distract me,” Sora replied, picking a card from his hand and placing it down on the field, face down. “That’s the fourth time you say this today.”

“That is simply because it is, Sora. Have you completed your turn?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sora mumbled, picking a card from his deck and eyeing it with an annoyance he failed to hide, like most of his emotions. Weak monster with an ability he needed three matches and half his daily budget before.

He had nothing on the field to play. That last card was just a trap he hoped his opponent would stumble into, although he highly suspected it. That would be the second time it happened, and Luxord wasn’t one to repeat the same mistake twice in a game.

“Very well.” Luxord selected a card from his hand and held it, face towards Sora, and declared; “I cast _Fluttering Winds_ and flip up the cards on your side of the field.”

Sora blinked, surprised. He had walked right into the trap, only to know what that one card on the field was? Then, recovering quickly, he replied.

“That activates my trap card, _Twist of Fate_. I take four cards from your hand and then you take two from mine,” he said, flipping the trap card face up.

Luxord merely smiled and presented his hand face-down to Sora, who hesitantly eyed them. There was no way to know what they were. He figured there were no bad choices, his own hand terrible anyway. So he chose at random, quickly plucking four cards and looking them over. One useless card again, in fact one that was part of the set with the other useless one, so he placed it next to its brother. The three others, however, gave him solid hope. That _Mistveil Spirit_ combined very well with his previous _Dance of Spirits_ situational spell, and there was…

“My turn now, Sora.” Luxord said, interrupting his thoughts.

“Oh, right.” Sora exclaimed, feeling a bit bad to have spaced out. He extended his hand towards his opponent. Without a second of hesitation, Luxord picked the two cards at the left end. He looked at them, and smiled.

Sora quickly drew his hand back and looked it over, searching for any missing piece of his nascent hope of victory. Nothing of value had been lost. He sighed in relief.

“My turn isn’t over, according to the rules of this game, is it not?” Luxord interjected, clearly amused by Sora’s complete inability to have a poker face.

“That’s correct.” Sora replied, looking up from his hand.

“Good.” Luxord then started rearranging his hand, spacing five cards away from the rest.

Sora went back to his hand, making sure he had everything he need—

“ _Oh no,_ ” he thought, almost adding a word he was sure his mom would scold him for even thinking, and she would know. “ _That’s ridiculous, he can’t possibly have._ ”

“Dear Sora, you need to stop setting up your hand the same way every time, with your spells to the left, monsters in the centre and long term cards to the right…” Luxord stated, placing, one by one, in a circle, the five cards on the field. “I activate _Gift of the Goddess_. I wipe your hand and deal—”

“I forfeit. You won. Again. Next time we’re just playing poker,” Sora mumbled, looking at the setting sun. It was obviously their final match, and he was very tired.

That got Luxord to laugh out loud. It was, after all, Sora’s choice to play this game after his string of defeats at poker. He hadn’t lost every match, it didn’t even qualify as a crushing defeat, but he wanted a change and thought playing something Luxord had never played before would be an interesting turning of the tables.

They’d even gone to Commerce Island to buy Luxord his own cards, and he’d made his own deck while Sora found them something to eat before they went back to the old beach to play.

It had worked at first. He’d won the first games, easily. And then Luxord got hang of the strategy. Sora had forgotten strategy had never been his forte and now realized Riku probably lost on purpose a lot when they were kids.

“I disagree, I enjoyed this game very much. I wonder if Even will…”

That got Sora to join in the laughter. The very image of Even playing a monster card game was nearly as absurd as if it had been Xemnas. Then, as he moved to pick his cards from the field, he heard the jingle of his munny pouch, and he stopped as his spirits fell. He plucked the small pouch from his pocket, then looked up at Luxord.

“I’m bad at numbers, how much do I owe you now?”

Luxord merely smiled. “Nothing.”

Sora blinked. “That’s impossible, you won way more matches than me, and don’t you dare go all pitiful on me. I accepted the bet.”

“Then call it an investment. Before our next meeting, go and buy yourself more cards. We’re playing this game again.”

Sora couldn’t help but smile at the idea. That could be fun, he could take the time to brush up on the game with Riku’s help (he wouldn’t give him a choice, the power of his puppy eyes was unstoppable). A rematch.

He looked down at the field, with the _Gift of the Goddess_ still placed in perfect formation upon it. He finally noticed the irony. Defeated by Luxord using the gift of a sea goddess made of multiple parts, and couldn’t help but resume laughing. He stopped at Luxord’s questioning look, and explained, having an idea:

“It’s nothing, I just thought it would be nice if, for old time’s sake, we had that match on another set of islands. What would you say if we roped in a certain bad breathed pirate and robbed him of his pocket change?”

After a moment of silence, Luxord smiled. “I would like that very much, Sora.”


End file.
